So, a new article about 7 new fall pilots which to me all sounds very interesting! It seems both superheroes and dystopian futures are the new black and thats kinda neat. Especially the Hundred sounds interesting to my mind.
Anyways - as the article asks - Which show will be your new crack?
Man, that was a lot of CW shows. I’m definitely interested in Super Clyde, though. That’s a new Greg Garcia show and My Name is Earl and Raising Hope are both awesome.
Which show will be your new crack?
Reading the descriptions, I’m going to say “none of them.” They all sounded absolutely terrible.
Super Clyde: this was a bit hard to parse, but it sounds like it’ll be an ultra-saccharine show about giving away money. I don’t think Stephen Fry can save that.
Delirium: A dystopia which is about suppressing people’s ability to love. Via operations. I can’t visualize any way in which this won’t suck.
Gothica: All the monsters of yesteryear’s literature (i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde) mashed together for no particular reason. It’s being compared to Once Upon A Time. Need I say more?
The Hundred: Teenage misfits explore a mutated Earth. I hate shows which take what could have been an interesting premise and try and make it “more interesting” by inserting Hollywood’s vision of teenage misfits where adults would work better. Supposedly an actual quote from the show: “We’re back, bitches!” I hope giant cockroaches eat all of them.
The Tomorrow People: teenage mutants with super powers on the run. The summary compares it to Arrow. “Lots of teen angst and smooching.”
Sleepy Hollow: The Headless Horseman is the main antagonist, only he’s really one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Death, presumably). Hoo boy.
The Selection: A Luddite future in which the King holds a reality-TV style contest to select a bride for his son from 25 contestants. Lemme explain something to you, Hollywood: that’s not how kings arrange weddings. They go for whatever alliance makes the most political sense.
Super Clyde sounds neat, thanks for tipping me tow ho Greg Garcia is - MNIE is one of my all time favorite shows. Most of those all seem interesting enough to give a try, which is fun.
Arrow doesn’t have teen angst and smooching! It’s much better than what you might imagine, if you haven’t seen it, Gus.
Sorry, should have been clearer, the description said “Arrow with teen angst and smooching.” I’m aware that Arrow probably doesn’t have those things.
Ah! LOL, yeah that does make more sense, thanks for the clarification!
I agree about the weird “add a teen to the mix to make it interesting” thing, which also annoys me. I guess its part of the target audience being teenagers in large parts. Other than that, the idea about The Hundred IS very interesting and I could easily see myself being engrossed in it. I think I’m used by now though to ignore those kinds of things, since most shows these days end up dealing with drama (i.e. persons and their character arcs) instead of plot which is what I find interesting.
Battlestar Galactica is a show that very much shows this - I really like it, but got increasingly annoyed with the focus on character arcs instead of moving the damn plot forward.
I agree, it’s just that the focus on 100 “juvenile delinquents” made it immediately obvious that anything remotely interesting about the premise would be buried under other crap. I’m actually fine with shows which focus on characters, it’s just that the “teen rebel” slant forebodes that it will focus on stupid instead. Remember the Terra Nova teens sneaking off to have fun in the forest filled with dinosaurs? I was disappointed they didn’t all die.
They screwed up the character arcs as well. The endless, pointless side-mission by Kara Thrace wasn’t bad just because it went on forever, it was bad because she was pointlessly and annoyingly loony-tunes. Painting weird crap on your walls just isn’t character development. Sometimes the “arc” seriously damaged the character they’d already established, like Adama’s crying jag.
I am now forcibly restraining myself from writing a multi-paragraph rant about BSG and how it managed to mix great with awful. It’s not the shows that sucked from the get-go that are the worst. It’s the ones that smothered brilliance with turds.
I was kind of intrigued by the political maneuverings on the Ark, but undoubtedly it will just be used as shadowy figure wankery to screw up what the teens are doing, which, blech.
Apparently we’re allowed to do hard sci-fi…but only if it comes with a twist. And the twist is always stupid. I’m also bitter about Oblivion and After Earth at the moment. (Oblivion looked really interesting until it realized it’s a Tom Cruise movie and the guns showed up)
I’ll still watch Oblivion when it hits Netflex. Tom Cruise with guns is OK with me, I enjoyed Collateral. I think I might even be able to enjoy Reacher if I can just make myself forget he’s portraying a guy a foot taller and about twice his weight. After Earth, though, has completely turned me off with the heavy handed and stupid looking father-son trailers. Guys, you can do father-son bonding without clubbing us over the head.
I had to chuckle over “the twist is always stupid.” Because, among other reasons, you can read that literally. “A police state is colonizing the Cretaceous. But here’s the twist: it’s stupid!” “Everyone blacks out and has a vision of the future. But here’s the twist: it’s stupid!”
Hah! I would watch the hell out of a show on CW where about mid-season one of the characters has an epiphany and calls the whole crew in for a meeting. “Holy crap, I just realized: we’re all a group of high-functioning morons! There’s not one person here who has an IQ greater than 85!”
Dun-dun-DUUUUUUH!
All of those sound pretty terrible to me. Clyde and Sleepy Hollow might at least be good for some comedic laughs, but I can’t see myself seriously watching any of them. Once again cable blows away anything network TV has to offer.
In a world without Crusader Kings II…
Oh, Arrow has plenty of angst. Even some teen angst. A little smooching, but really it’s more gratuitously ‘hot’ people (of both sexes- it’s very equal-opportunity cheesecake) being angsty at one another. I watch it every week, without fail.
As usual, I’ll wait a few weeks into the Fall season before becoming invested in any new show. I like to make sure it has staying power first. I’m looking at you 666 Park Avenue!
double post
The Super Clyde premise gives me a whimsical, Wonderfalls/Pushing Daisies feel and so I’m hoping it can capture even an ounce of Fuller’s charm and wit. I’ll give it a shot.
If the dialogue in Sleep Hallow is good, I’ll give it a try too.
I can see absolutely no way that Delirium won’t suck as few things have sucked before.
Me too. Hell, I’m paying for it on iTunes too. It’s my guilty pleasure that I don’t actually feel guilty about.
Also, the main actor does this thing where he’s working out with a pull-up bar, and uses it to climb up to the ceiling. It’s totally awesome. Is that really a thing, or is it some kind of camera trick?
That article makes all of the shows sound really terrible, but I think that may just be the article and not the shows, per se. (Though I will certainly regard them with skepticism until folks recommend them to me.)